The symbolism of the tower of Babel in Alexander V. Chayanov's book “My brother Alexei's journey into the land of peasant utopia”

The image of Babylon was popular in historical writings and fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Alexander V. Chayanov's book “My brother Alexei's journey into the land of peasant utopia” (1920) contains a lot of allusions to the Tower of Babel, such as numerous references to the works of Peter Breugel the Elder, author of paintings of the Tower of Babel whose works are appreciated by the peasants. His utopian governers, the “augurs of spirit”, who changed the course of history and restored the State, considered their deeds theurgic, and it was no coincidence that the state anthem in this utopia was Alexander Skriabin's “Prometheus”. In the country of peasant utopia, an artificial selection is put in practice, the so-called “therapy of failed lives”, and all the aspirations are not to waste a single talent. Thus, a man sees himself the centre of the world. The conception of collaboration with God is depreciated. Having embodied in the novel his futurologic, scientific and economic, artistic ideas Chayanov warned against the idea of Man as a God whose symbol is the Tower of Ancient Babel.